THK GENESIS OE NATURE. 



49 



suggested that the old notion of separate creations is impossible ; 

 that it is scieutitically absurd to couceive new species coming 

 directly into existence as fresh starting-points ; that the only 

 .■scientific explanation of the vastly various kinds of existing life 

 is that life first came into the world as protoplasm, and that 

 thence it developed from within itself until the present order 

 of existing species was achieved. As we have already seen, the 

 old notion that evolution somehow did this by its own potency 

 is absurd. It cannot have any independent power of its own — 

 it can only be a means or order of working adopted by the 

 pleasure of God. Now, undoubtedly, God does work from 

 within. Every created life is a wonderful piece of machinery 

 built up by God from within ; — or rather, to be more accurate, 

 from within and from without together ; for no living being 

 •exists and grows from within alone ; things external to it are 

 necessary for its life and growth ; and these external things 

 must have been provided for it by a Power without itself. 

 And though God does work from within, the source of His 

 work cannot be described as intus ah intra ; it must be intus ah 

 •extra] for the Creator "was," before any created thing became. 

 'The first thing created could not have come by evolution. 

 There is, therefore, no a priori necessity that evolution should 

 be the only method of creation. In the elaboration of non- 

 living matter, in the |)rogress of a w^orld, the process must be 

 that of building up, by wliatever term it be described. That 

 which has only mechanical or chemical power can only produce 

 mechanical or cliemical results. In the mental sphere it is 

 ■clear that intuitions from within are originated or fed from 

 perceptions from without. In social matters advance is largely 

 •caused by experience ; and the accumulation of experience has 

 no kin to the evolving of ideas. Something, then, must be 

 added to evolution to obtain a complete description of method. 



But as regards living things, it may be well to ask to what 

 the claim of evolution amounts ? All intra-specific life is a 

 genealogy. It is admitted, that, within a species, succession of 

 life comes only by descent. No one doubts that each species 

 has an unbroken sequence of ancestry from its beginning to its 

 •end, in spite of any variation within itself. The ckiim of extreme 

 evolution is that all these separate genealogies are themselves 

 genealogically connected ; that, in spite of their present utterly 

 diverse aspects, they all form a single long genealogy, continuous 

 by descent from the very first origin of created life. From our 

 present point of view it may be freely acknowledged that this 

 is within the bounds of possibility. There is nothing a lyriori 



